1.6 Million people, mostly children, die every year from disease related to unclean water and poor sanitation. Life Force Kiosks, a non-profit operating in Kenya, was formed to help provide clean water to all.

Life Force Kiosks Product Expansion

Life Force Kiosks is excited to announce that we’ve launched four new products in Kibera.

1. Baby diapers
2. Sanitary pads
3. Antibacterial soap
4. Toothpaste

Launching these new products has two main benefits. First, we’re making it easier for families in Kibera to access these products. They can certainly go out to markets and buy them, but now they’re closer and easier to purchase. Much like our model with water purification, we’ve also taken some products that families would normally have to buy in bulk like diapers and are selling them individually. While it might sound strange to Americans to buy just a few diapers at a time, this is a nice service for people who sometimes can only afford that day’s expenses. This is our most popular new item so far (133 sold in the first week), largely because people can buy just as many as they need for that day and can come back tomorrow when they’ve earned more money.

The second benefit is to help Life Force Kiosks become more financially sustainable. Selling water purification services in this community may never be a profitable endeavor. There’s just not enough volume or a high enough margin. Just like you wouldn’t walk into a grocery store and see them selling just one product, expanding our inventory should help us more financially stable. Of course we still make just a couple of cents per sale, so this definitely won’t offset the need for outside funding in the immediate future.

On the water purification side, we continue to march towards a key milestone of 1 million liters purified. Hopefully I’ll be able to share that exciting news with you in the next few months.

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2 Responses

I’ve been following your work for a while and really admire the progress you’ve achieved.

Great news on the product diversification. I was wondering what householders can do with the diapers when they are done with them? There’s not much in the way of proper sanitary facilities in Kibera so I wonder if they’ll end up in the gutter.

Thanks Ryan. I appreciate your comments. You are quite correct that trash collection is a major issue in Kibera (in that there isn’t any). Based on my experience in Kibera, it seems like people pretty much just throw their trash away outside in the streets. I’m checking to see if there’s an official trash collection area. But even if there is, I don’t think it’s very effective. Just another in the long list of problems in this area.
-Jeremy